uol-openday-robot

Modules for the UOL open day

more details, ideas, and discussions to be found in the wiki.

Project Synopsis

The aim of this project is to develop a robot demonstration platform to promote the College of Science during Open Days and other public events. It will be based on STRANDS robot platform. The robot is particularly designed to engage in interaction with humans by means of an articulated head with various sensors to perceive humans in the robot’s vicinity, speakers, and a touch screen. The objectives in this project are to

• Develop a software stack for safe and reliable navigation of the robot in the presence of humans,
• Design simple interaction procedures that get people engaged with the robot by approaching them in a pro-active manner,
• Implement an interface that provides information about the College of Science through the interface, and to
• Evaluate the developed system during actual open days to gain further insights into the potential of such a system.

This project is a continuation of the Robots@OD project accomplished in summer 2012 by three Lincoln CS and GC students. This project is designed as a collaborative project for a team of 2-3 students working on different components of the system (people detection, robot navigation, interaction design). It is a great opportunity for students to get a first-hand experience of state-of-the-art robot hardware and software components. We are looking for candidates who can demonstrate very good programming skills (C++, Python, Java) and are ambitious to take this project all the way to a successful demonstration platform.